Despite the UK’s frankly embarrassing showing this year, Eurovision nonetheless delivered a couple of star-quality performances: Switzerland’s Gjon’s Tears with ‘Tout L’Univers’ (for all the world like a lost Bond theme) and this song by Italian contenders Måneskin, which magically fuses the DNA of two of my favourite rock bands, The Darkness and Royal Blood, into what feels like a potentially globe-conquering hybrid.

For a start, the sonics here immediately earnt it a place on my own personal referencing shortlist as a modern rock archetype: the drums are weighty and heaving with compression; the bass is solid and characterful with excellent small-speaker transmission; the guitars are raw and wide, but with great mono-compatibility; and the vocals are powerful, upfront, and aggressive. And all of this with an upper spectrum that remains clear and controlled enough that you can turn it up good and loud without things getting unpleasantly abrasive. Massive props to producer Fabrizio Ferraguzzo here – and I’m hoping his monitor controller is his secret sauce, as he appears to be using the same one as me…

The structure and pacing of this song are tremendous too, building up a fantastic head of steam via several different textural build-ups. The most impressive of these for me is through the verses, managing four clearly differentiated and increasing energy levels, none of which steal any thunder from the filthily rifftastic chorus. So the first verse (at 0:10) stays away from the snare, hats, and bass, so that their reintroduction adds extra heft and propulsion for the second (at 0:28), an effect further enhanced by singer Damiano David picking up the vocal’s rhythmic pace. And it’s David’s ability to push the vocal rhythms up another gear that most clearly elevates verse three at 1:15, but notice also the bigger, wider guitar sound that also arrives at that point. It’s also canny the way the vocal line settles first on E, then shifts up to G two bars later, before moving to B from bar five – a shift broadly mimicking the second verse’s melodic trajectory. But the transcendent arrangement moment for me is when David hits that B at 1:24 and both he and the guitars suddenly gain subtle harmony layers and the hi-hat suddenly starts adding clear off-beat eighth-notes. It’s one of those bits of arrangement alchemy where so little seems to have changed, and yet the track suddenly seems to be propelled forward.

The middle section’s build-up is efficient and effective too, though, providing a nicely theatrical moment in the spotlight for the bassist (plus a great octave drop in register at 2:10), and an irresistibly sing-along vocal riff with another upwards registral-hike at 2:20. There’s a classic drop-chorus too, sensibly adding a bit of long-term dynamics to the only song section that otherwise retains a fairly similar arrangement throughout – a way of having your cake (ie. delivering your most powerful chorus texture right from the outset) and eating it too (by making the final choruses seem like they’re a step up in energy). And, speaking of sensible, I’ve been seeing more and more bands moving their guitar solos to the end of the song, which I can’t help thinking makes sense in terms of bring the final choruses earlier. After all, if the music’s shortened or interrupted for any reason, then wouldn’t you rather, from a commercial perspective, have the maximum number of choruses already in the bag?

Before you leave this song, take another moment to appreciate the kick drum. The sound is impeccable, for a start, with solid low end that arrives right on the beat (but doesn’t hang around to otherwise muddy the low end) and just the right amount of meaty beater definition – both characteristics that are all-too-often MIA on project-studio productions. And, from a musical perspective, I love the musical contrast the kick creates between its stomping quarter-notes during most of the song, and the athletic rhythmic counterpoint of the choruses and at the end of the middle-section.

All in all, this song is a model of excellence that every student of rock arrangement and production should make it their business to pick apart and learn from. And I can’t wait to see where a band with this kind of craft, discipline, and panache go from here!